South African race fans following Dakar 2018 were most relieved on Sunday afternoon, when rookie pairing Hennie de Klerk and Gerhard Schutte and the TreasuryOne Amarok finally lit up the timing screen after being ‘missing in action’ for most of the past 24 hours. De Klerk and Schutte last appeared on the timing system in 20th position among the cars late Saturday afternoon, before reappearing, having lost four and a half hours in the early hours of Sunday.
But they failed to appear in the stage results or the overall results, presumably because Saturday’s Dakar results were not complete, nor were they update on the results page after the organisers went to sleep. To make things worse, there was no communication with the team at the non-service overnight marathon stage bivouac at Uyuni where family, friends and fans were unable to raise any of the crew overnight.
While it was an anxious time for their supporters, there was however some encouragement when Hennie and Gerhard appeared on Sunday morning’s start list and they also remained absent from Dakar’s dreaded Withdrawals list, but they still remained missing in action with no reference to their position in the results. Until 16h35 SA time Sunday afternoon when the Amarok all of a sudden lit up the timing screens lying 34th at the first waypoint and then in 35th a little later at WP2.
What happened to the intrepid crew in between Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon however remains a mystery for now and a story to be told once normal communications resume, suffice to say that they are still in the running, presumably around 35th overall and still going strong. Watch this space for the story behind the treasuryOne Amarok’s ‘disappearance’ — all will be revealed soon!